


Dental Hygiene and You!

by tawg



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicholas gets attacked, and then things start to change... A WIP that will never be finished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dental Hygiene and You!

Danny had worried at first that Nicholas would eventually get bored of Sandford. And then he’d politely tolerate the idleness for a few more months, and then one morning his cottage would be empty and Nicholas would be back in London. The first year after the NWA was certainly busy. And then the next few months were slower, but still filled with odd acts of vandalism and petty crime. And then, by a year an a half, things were pretty much back to the ‘chase the swan until eleven, then clock off for lunch’ level of excitement.

Nicholas had scoffed when Danny suggested that maybe the Inspector was finding Sandford boring. “The day-to-day crimes are always boring, Danny. No matter where you are. But no where matches Sandford when it comes to the truly bizarre.”

This opinion was validated the next week, with the ‘Take-away Zombie’. So named because, after having stolen five pounds of raw beef from Somerfield and cornered by Sandford’s finest, he proceeded to launch himself at the two officers and tear a small chunk out of Nicholas’ neck. While Nick and Danny exchanged stunned looks, the thief jumped over a nearby wall and disappeared.

Nicholas had been forced by hospital staff to take the rest of the day off, after having the chunk of flesh – which really was rather small, and also still attached to the rest of his neck – stitched back in place. He also took the next day off, complaining of a headache. And the next day. After a third day of not seeing Nick, Danny was ready to bust round there and get to the root of the problem. And then Tony went and mentioned in passing that Nick had swapped shifts with Isaac Turner for the rest of the week.

After half a shift of being pestered by the Andes about what he’d done to jilt Nick, he signed off early and busted around to Nick’s place anyway. And Nicholas explained that, what with the way things were heading in the grand scale of Sandford’s rehabilitation, that is made sense for there to be an officer trained in apprehension and arrests in the station at all times. And, in the face of Danny’s flat look, Nicholas went on to point out that he got more paperwork done when it was just him. And then finally he sighed heavily.

“I used to do shift work all the time in London,” Nicholas admitted, not meeting Danny’s eyes. “All these regular hours are setting me a little on edge.” And that made some kind of sense. Not a lot, exactly. But it made enough non-sense that Danny was sure that it made perfect sense to Nicholas. But all the while there were these irritating wheels turning at the back of Danny’s head, trying to work out what was really going on.

It wasn’t until nearly a week later, when Danny had randomly been awake at three in the morning – horror movies, never again – and decided to drop in on Nicholas that those wheels finally found something to work with. He’d walked into the station and seen Nicholas sitting at his desk, struggling to eat an apple.

 

Three days later – which made it a total of fourteen days after the ‘snack and run’ – Nicholas sank into Danny’s couch. It had taken a lot of prodding, and whining, and even a hint of an occasional plead creeping in around the edges of Danny’s voice. He’d even played the ‘Don’t you like spendin’ time with me anymore?’ and the ‘Have I done something wrong? Nick?’ cards. When it came to girls, they were usually the last resort cards, for when Danny was deep in the bad books. With Nicholas they were so effective that Danny considered making them ‘first resort’ lines, just to save time in the future.

“Sooo,” said Danny, stretching the sound out in order to make it fill in all the gaps between him and Nicholas. “I got the Blade movies.”

“I thought you said that all the reviews said they were crap,” Nicholas replied, a query wrinkled across his brow.

“Yeah. But you can’t trust what the reviewers say, can you? Anyway, one of them’s got this stealth Shatner cameo.”

“And that’s good?” Nicholas looked even more confused, and picked up a DVD cover as if it held secret text which would unlock the mysteries of movie watching. Although a secret really-concise-diagram wouldn’t hurt either.

“Shatner is always good. Well, young Shatner, at any rate. Some of his later stuff it pretty meh. Well, most of all of his stuff, really. But it’s dead funny, and he does all these neat shoulder rolls.”

Nicholas looked up at Danny. “He does?”

“Oh yeah. Like, his character wants a cupcake or something, so he’ll shoulder roll over to the desert table.”

Nicholas raised his eyebrows, and let his eyes fall back to the DVD case in his hand. “Sounds fascinating.”

And the difference between Nicholas and girls was that when he said it, he usually did think that it sounded fascinating. And when he didn’t, he was polite enough to fake it, instead of huffing loudly at every opportunity and flipping his hair about all through the movie. Not that Nicholas had much hair to flip. Which was another difference between Nicholas and girls, but not as relevant as the first.

Nicholas was chewing his thumbnail as he read the back of the second DVD case, his eyes flicking down further to examine the special features like he’d been trained to do. By leaning his head right back against the couch, Danny could see the curve of stitches holding a bit of Nicholas’ neck back in place. In the imperfect light of Danny’s den, it looked mostly healed already.

Danny’s eyes flicked back up to Nicholas’s mouth, and his thumbnail, and he felt his question crawl up his throat and begin a slide along his tongue. He swallowed it down, and put the first DVD on.

 

“Well,” Danny said as the end credits began, “what did you think?”

Nicholas had one foot up on the couch, and he rested his chin on his knee as he contemplated the question. “It had some very nice action sequences,” he said at last.

“That’s it?”

“Well,” Nicholas paused. “It’s not the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen,” he offered generously. “That award still belongs to Point Break.”

“Ey!” Danny swatted at Nicholas, who ducked away from him and laughed. Danny watched him, saw him, and his mouth moved of its own accord. “Are you a vampire?”

Nicholas’ laugh froze like someone had hit the pause button. “What kind of a question is that?” he asked.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who got bit, swore off sunlight, and then suddenly has super-fast healing powers.” Danny looked down at his hands. “And then there’s your teeth.”

Nicholas lifted a hand to his mouth. “There’s nothing wrong with my teeth,” he said firmly from behind his palm, although the rest of him suggested otherwise.

Danny gave Nicholas a flat, tired look. “Nick,” he said before reaching out and pulling Nicholas’ hand away from his face. Gently, timidly, Danny pressed his thumb against Nicholas’ top lip, and slowly pulled it up.

Nicholas snapped his head away from Danny’s hand, and shot his partner a dirty look. But Danny had seen.

“That fang. Both of ‘em. They weren’t there before you got bitten,” Danny said resolutely. “I know because just before you got bit I told you that joke about the three dogs at the vet, and you laughed so hard your teeth showed. And if you had fangs then I definitely would’ve noticed.”

Nicholas opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “They’re not fangs,” he said at last. “I think… I guess my teeth just grew. Mouth hormones or something.”

Danny raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Mouth hormones? That gave you fangs? Sounds pretty vampire-like to me.” He crossed his arms over his chest for good measure, mainly because he knew Nicholas thought it was childish, and when Danny was childish Nicholas was forced to be the reasonable one.

There was a long silence, in which Nicholas wrapped both arms around his knee and hugged it. “I’m not a vampire,” he said firmly.

“Okay,” Danny said agreeably.

“And I don’t have fangs.”

“Right, they’re just teeth,” Danny said with a nod. “Can I see them?”

Nicholas started. “My teeth?”

Danny nodded, and reached a slow hand out again. Nicholas tolerated having his top lip pulled away from each not-fang in turn, like he was a dog having his gums checked. And he opened his mouth when Danny put a prompting weight on his chin. Danny tapped at one of the fangs, causing Nicholas to cringe. Then Danny poked a finger inside Nick’s mouth, and curled it around the back of one fang.

Nicholas’ eyes shot open, and he tried to pull away. Danny, however, had a very tight grip on that one tooth. “Danny,” Nicholas tried to say with authority, “get your fingers out of my mouth.” Only, with Danny’s hand in the way, it sounded more like ‘gekhh yor fin-gehsh ouu ov mah maof’. Irrespective of enunciation, Danny took absolutely no notice.

He lifted his other hand up, and ran a cautious fingertip back and forth across the point of the captured fang. “It feels pretty sharp,” he said conversationally.

Nicholas, looking entirely uncomfortable with the situation, made an unhappy whining noise in his throat.

Danny frowned. “Hang on, what’s-” He pressed a bulge at the back of the tooth, making Nicholas jerk and Danny jump and between the two actions there was a tearing feeling. The two men froze.

“Okay,” said Danny shakily. “I was right about ‘em being sharp.” Seeing the panicked look on Nicholas’ face, he slowly eased his finger away from where it had been snagged by the tip of a fang. There was a jagged rip from the first joint of his forefinger up to the second joint, which was managing to shed a fair amount of blood for its size.

Danny wrapped his finger in the bottom of his rugby shirt. Nicholas spat Danny’s blood into the palm of his hand, and then wiped it off on the leg of his jeans. He then stared in mild horror at the stain, although whether it was at the blood itself, or at the fact that he’d now have to soak his jeans at the next possible moment was unclear.

“Sooo… vampire?”

Nicholas kept staring at the stain, occasionally wiping his palm on a cleaner section on denim.

“Do bits of you turn to ash when you get into sunlight?”

Nicholas shook his head. “Get a migraine,” he mumbled.

“And I’m guessing you don’t drink blood? Or eat raw meat?”

Nicholas shook his head again. “Fruit mostly,” he said. “And mushrooms.”

“I can see that, suckin’ the juice outta apples and all,” Danny said with a laugh. Nicholas responded with a flat, unimpressed look. Danny looked away, inspecting his finger. “I don’t suppose you’ve played with any Holy Water, see if it burns?”

Nicholas pulled his other foot up onto the couch, and pressed is forehead against his knees. “I should have gone back to London,” he mumbled into stained denim.

Danny felt something inside him grow heavy, and sink.


End file.
